“There’s nothing new under the sun” is an adage claiming that anything that can be done has already been done; in entertainment, this tends to be true. Supposedly, there are only seven basic story plots rehashed ad nauseam. Stories that resonate are those that ring true across time and cultures. If you watch a movie, you know mostly what to expect. The same is true of a concert or theatre production.
Arriving at the Belfry Theatre, I had no prior knowledge of New Age Attitudes: Live in Concert – A Lo-Fi Listen, by Amanda Sum (which was part of Belfry’s 2025 Spark Festival). I expected a large-scale production and was surprised when I was led into a tiny space which could barely seat 100 people. In a modest performance space at the front of the room, a young woman sits silently cutting and pasting together a small booklet using construction paper and a glue stick.
Eventually we each explore an envelope that contains a pen, a White Rabbit candy, and one of the same booklets the woman is creating. With still no formal acknowledgement from her, we begin to read. On one page, we are surprised by a popup image of a little cottage set against mountains. The next page contains a short contract vowing to share this night, this time, and this space with each other. It is signed by Sum, and a blank space is given for our own sigil.
The beginning of the performance is divided into “songs,” which are actually just silence, and we are directed wordlessly by Sum to go page-by-page through the booklet, which she denotes by playing a note on a tiny piano beside her. Sometimes there are directions to follow, other times poetry, or artwork. Eventually, we are asked to share a bit about ourselves. What are our simple pleasures and pains? We are instructed to detach the page, crumple it up, and throw it to the front of the stage.
Abruptly, Sum exits the room. A short time later, a curtain lifts, revealing an extended stage with a piano resembling the smaller one. Facing away from the crowd, Sum begins to sing a series of songs that invite the listener to share her personal experience of living a simple, human life.
“I’ve spent a long time convincing myself I’m pretty,” she sings. “I’m not that hot, but I’m funny, and if I have one thing going for me, it’s my personality, and I’m okay with that.” She tells us in one line that she feels fine, and then immediately tells us it’s a lie, and that she’s tired of hiding her vulnerability beneath bravado. Six out of seven days she feels pretty shitty, she says.
She’s wearing no shoes, but patterned socks, and she stops at one point to peel and eat an orange from a fruit bowl on the top of the piano. In the simple silence she chews and slurps the juicy fruit, and a few audience members laugh, because such intimate sounds make us feel uncomfortable. But Sum is at home on a rainy day, practicing piano all alone, and soon she wipes her hands and continues.
New Age Attitudes invites the listener to question what it means to be an audience member, or a performer. Sum allows us to sit in the mild discomfort of defied expectations until we begin to draw peace from the silence, the taste of a creamy candy, and the satisfying experience of flipping through a little booklet that, before the show, she personalized with our name and a heart, greeting us warmly with a smile.
I found myself in wonderment, realizing that even after thousands of years of human existence, there is still something new under the sun. Old ideas can be packaged in new ways. A performance can break the conventions separating performer from audience, and can remind us that each of us is a person with hopes, fears, and joys.
It must have taken bravery for Sum to create an avant-garde performance that refuses to follow proper, established theatre protocol. A sharing of intimacy that reveals her own fears, insecurities, and simple triumphs. With a bit of construction paper and a glue stick, a piano and a juicy orange, and some much-needed silence, she pulls us away from our endless thought spirals, back into our bodies. She reminds us that we’re all just people, simultaneously vulnerable and strong, scared and happy, and this is what it means to be human.